This Darkness
by lepetitemort
Summary: Rebekah is dragged into consciousness consumed by panic and confusion, stifled by smoke and dazed with Damon. As he holds her together, all he needs to know is one thing- that she is okay.


**Disclaimer: The Vampire Diaries does not belong to me. If it did, you would all probably hate it.**

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I sometimes wish I were still as blind as I was yesterday. I have spent so many lives falling in love and watching helplessly as the man who claimed my heart took a tentative step back before fleeing entirely. I know that I am destroying myself- this darkness inside of me caresses what is left of my sanity, teasing. The cruelty, the violence, the bitterness. It is licking my charred soul with devilish flames, testing the quivering waters before diving right in. My misery knows- it _knows_- that one day, it will consume me. Pick me up and swallow me whole. Sometimes, I wish that time would arrive a little sooner. I am tired of waiting to become nothing when I am so very ready right now.

It had taken me some time to come to terms with the fact that no one can ever love me. Hope had embraced me; but now, one thousand years later, it has kissed my lips goodbye and left me alone forever. I feel a sadness- an overwhelming sadness that can only be described as black. I am cloaked in a forever cloud, black. Smoky and black and clogging my lungs and leaving me spluttering and desperate and… Black. Only black.

I wish he would stop trying to save me, though. I wish he would stop pretending.

He haunts me and it hurts because he is so beautiful- and not just in the way his jaw razors ice or his fiercely bright eyes soften in the most exceptional way. Not even the way his hair tumbles like the darkest of waterfalls or the way the harsh ripples in his stomach warm to the touch. He is beautiful in that the essence of his soul grazes me so that I am starting to believe the wounds he creates will never heal. He cannot love me. He cannot love anyone but himself. Can he? He has always been this way. He will always be this way. I am ridiculous and foolish to ever have thought otherwise.

I blinked only once as my body rushed into consciousness. The world was disoriented; everything seemed misshapen and wrong. A smudged silhouette hovered over me. My eyes desperately scrambled to focus on the face, but as I did so the lines blurred before me. A distant groan sounded, but I couldn't tell whether it had belonged to another or myself.

"Rebekah?"

Hisvoice shattered me with the very first syllable. I opened my mouth to speak but instead of forming words I instinctively gulped in a lump of foggy air. It suddenly hit me that I was cold. I was freezing. Where was I? A hot buzz electrified my arm and my body jolted. "It's okay." His voice dripped from his tongue to my skin like melted velvet, a rough edge suggesting restlessness and fatigue. He effortlessly scooped up my limp body and pulled it against his own. "It's okay," He repeated lowly, "you're with me now. You're okay."

An inaudible sob shuddered through me as his hold on me tightened. Vampires are supposed to be freezing but pressed into me, he felt warm. The pieces that held me together were jagged and ill fitting, forced to sit together in an uncomfortable, blemished way so much so that I was at a loss- nothing felt right. Nothing was normal, or in it's place. Nothing but my body as it settled into him. I hardly remembered a thing- sharp images cut across my mind of screams. My own screams- and Klaus' face, contorted with ugly rage. He had reared and roared and the last thing I remember was his hand violently grasping my face and my neck ringing a disgusting crunch as he snapped it. He had killed me. Not forever, but he had killed me. My own brother had killed me.

It was then that I had found my fingers clawing at Damon's back, twisting in the material of his shirt and my tears, heavy with regret, leaking onto his skin. "Damon." I whispered against him. He couldn't have held me any tighter, nor I him. Our hands fumbled clumsily over one another's bodies and I tangled myself in him- in what he gave to me. "Shh." The low noise rumbled from his throat into my matted hair.

Muddy leaves and bare branches crunched beneath us. I sobbed silently, and he held me in the safety of his arms between the cusp and the flame, whispering soft symphonies in which I found myself swimming in. Relying on.

I do not know how long we remained there together, hunched and curled and barely sane at all; but whilst he had held me together, he had also loosened my seams. I could not rely on him. I knew this- I had suffered it a million times before. Relying on another carried grave consequences that I was certain I was not strong enough to endure one more time. If he wished it so, Damon could destroy me. He could burn every last piece of me until I was nothing but forgotten ash, less than worthy of cherishing.

My fingers curled tentatively around his shoulder. The muscles flexed and twitched beneath me. He retracted, arms loosening from my shivering waist. His eyes, astonishingly blue, scoured the plains of my face. I did not know what he was searching for, but I tried my best to keep it from him. I had shown him I was weak, but he also needed to see that I could be strong, too. I did not always need his protection.

Finally, he dropped his hands to his side and sat back, his shape becoming one with the wilderness. He appeared deflated, whilst perfectly pieced together. Like he was prepared to catch me any moment I should stumble. I sighed softly, the sound tumbling from my lips and landing on the upturned nature.

"Why are you here?" The inquisition had long been delayed, squirming on my dry tongue behind my teeth. He did not flinch, any reaction my query carried failing to reflect in any way I could register. Damon looked at me carefully, carrying my sanity with his steady composure.

"Because I needed to be here." He replied gently, edged with certainty. "I needed to know that you were okay."

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**A/N: If you're more delusional and oblivious than Rebekah, you should seek out help. What an idiot, right?**

**I think we should all take this time to thank Klaus for snapping her neck so Damon could come to her rescue. Thank you, Klaus. Angel.**

**Reviews are great sometimes. But only sometimes. (All of the time.)**


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